


Mew York Mew York

by Azul_Bleu



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Kittens, Petfic, preslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 00:35:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18435386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azul_Bleu/pseuds/Azul_Bleu
Summary: Stiles had always thought that he’d adjust to city life easily. He’s always dreamed about it, about leaving the relative safety of Beacon Hills for the big bad city and landing straight on his feet, no problems. And he does love it, mostly.There's just one thing.





	Mew York Mew York

**Author's Note:**

> Found this languishing in my hard drive and thought I may as well. I follow a lot of kitten fosters on instagram to assuage my longing for a pet.

Stiles had always thought that he’d adjust to city life easily. He’d dreamed about it, about leaving the relative safety of Beacon Hills for the big bad city and landing straight on his feet, no problems. And he does love it, mostly. He loves walking the streets and feeling the hundreds of people flowing around him, the pulse of so many millions of lives being lived so close together, the hum of coffee shops and bars and clubs, how there’s always _something_ on, no matter what day it is. He’s never bored, that’s for sure.

 

There’s just one thing.

 

Growing up, he’d always had pets. His mom had loved dogs, and his dad was partial to cats, theoretically low-maintenance as they are. So when his mom died, and finally three years later her dog Buster had followed her, Stiles and his dad had gone to Deaton’s to find a cat to adopt and fill some of the space left behind. Even when Stiles was in college he made the hour-long drive back home every other weekend just to get his fill of furry cuddles. And see his dad, too, but he can talk to his dad on the phone. There is just no substitute for cuddling a warm pet that’s happy to see you and purring with simple affection.

 

So the problem Stiles has with the city is the distinct lack of fuzzy love. He’s a long flight and an equally long drive away from Zelda and his dad, and he can’t justify the trip on a graduate student’s stipend. He hates coming home to his empty studio apartment without a wagging tail or a little chirp hello. Just a dark, pet-less wasteland. He’d consider moving just to get a pet-friendly apartment if this weren’t pretty much all he could afford right now. A crappy studio apartment in a just-above terrible neighbourhood with no pets allowed.

 

Which is why he sits bolt upright when he hears what he would swear to, under oath, is a kitten’s mew coming from the wall behind his bed. The walls in the building are paper thin and Stiles has mostly trained himself into ignoring the ambient noises – hearing his various neighbours’ bad singing, loud sex and occasional drag out fights are not his favourite thing.

 

The apartment that the noise is coming from belongs to a guy he’s only ever seen in passing in the hall or in the elevator, giving each other the mandatory bro-nod. The guy is hot, intimidatingly so, and the ‘don’t talk to me’ vibes he gave out made even Stiles hesitate to make conversation. Once he’d picked up an orange that had fallen out of the guy’s grocery bag and handed it back to him, but that was the extent of their interactions.

 

And now there was this _sound_. It was unmistakeable. A kitten was mewing insistently in the guy’s apartment, gaining volume and ferocity with every second. Finally Stiles heard a low voice talking back to the kitten, presumably comforting it since the mewing stopped almost immediately.

 

Stiles lay awake for a long while, picturing hot neighbour guy cuddling a tiny kitten to his (probably ripped) chest and lulling it to sleep. The kitten would nuzzle into the guy’s neck and start purring, its fuzzy little body buzzing in contentment, not knowing that it was a forbidden kitten, that its existence was balanced on the delicate precipice of its person being able to keep it a secret in a building where you could hear someone cough two floors away.

 

\---

 

By morning, Stiles had made up his mind.

 

He knocked on hot neighbour guy’s door, belatedly wondering if he’d be up yet. He’d seen him leaving for early morning runs a few times when Stiles had stumbled home late enough to be called early, so he figured he’d be okay.

 

Neighbour guy opens the door a crack and scowls out at Stiles. His beard is magnificent. “Yeah?”

 

Stiles shifts awkwardly from foot to foot, trying to resist the urge to just push neighbour guy aside and yell “Here, kitty kitty!”

 

“I, uh, I live next door,” he finally says.

 

Neighbour guy stares and says nothing.

 

Stiles clears his throat. “But you knew that. I mean, I _think_ you knew that. We’ve run into each other in the elevator and the hallway, and you look like a smart guy so you probably, like, put two and two together and came up with neighbour.”

 

The guy’s scowl deepens but he still says nothing, and Stiles finally manages to wrest himself away from the pointless tangent and get to the heart of the issue.

 

“Anyway, last night I heard something from your apartment.”

 

Abruptly the guy stands up ramrod straight and his face goes totally blank. “No, you didn’t.”

 

“Yeah, I did,” Stiles says. “And you don’t even know what it was, yet.”

 

Neighbour guy’s blank look doesn’t move an inch. “There was nothing to hear.”

 

Stiles lets out an exasperated huff. “Dude, I heard it, okay? Your cat?”

 

“No, you didn’t,” Neighbour guy insists, and Stiles would be impressed for how doggedly he’s sticking to his story if it weren’t really annoying.

 

He’s just about to snap back when a tiny, furry body winds through neighbour guy’s legs and rockets out of the apartment into the hall.

 

“Ziggy!” Neighbour guy hisses. “Get back here!”

 

Stiles is way ahead of him, already sprinting down the hallway after the ball of brown fuzz. Luckily Ziggy’s legs are short and he’s young enough to not be totally steady on his feet, so catching him isn’t the ordeal that catching a full grown cat might be. He cradles the little animal to his chest, feeling the hummingbird pitter-patter of his heart and the silky softness off his fur. His heart melts when Ziggy noses into Stiles’ chest, mewing his tiny mew. His eyes and ears are open but he can’t be weaned yet.

 

Neighbour guy is frozen still when Stiles gets back to his doorway, brows lowered and expression wary. Stiles lifts Ziggy to his face to rub the kitten against his cheek.

 

“What do you want?” neighbour guy asks finally, biting out the words like it hurts him.

 

“What?” Stiles asks, lost in his world of kitten bliss.

 

“What do you _want_?” neighbour guy snaps.

 

Stiles tears his eyes away from Ziggy. “What do you mean?”

 

“To keep quiet about him,” neighbour guy replies, slowly, like he thinks Stiles is an idiot.

 

Stiles blinks. “You think I’m going to rat you out to the super?”

 

“Isn’t that why you’re here?” neighbour guy demands, his hands tensing on the doorframe.

 

“Oh my god, no,” Stiles says, finally holding Ziggy out so neighbour guy can take him. He does, and cradles him close immediately. Stiles heart definitely doesn’t squeeze at that. Nope. Not at all.

 

“Then why are you here?” neighbour guy asks.

 

Stiles scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. “I just moved to the city, and we can’t have pets here, and I really miss my cat. I was hoping, like, I could play with Ziggy sometimes?” Ugh, way to sound weird.

 

Neighbour guy is staring again, so Stiles hastens to add, “And I’d help! I mean, help keeping him a secret. Like, if you have inspection or the super needs to be in your place to fix something, he can come hide at mine.” He forces himself to shut up by actually biting his tongue.

 

Neighbour guys loosens his death grip on the doorframe and holds his hand out. “I’m Derek.”

 

Stiles feels a grin spread across his face as he shakes Derek’s hand. “I’m Stiles.”

 

Derek finally smiles, and holy shit. Stiles’ knees might actually be going weak. “Good to meet you, Stiles.”

 

Ziggy mews plaintively against Derek’s chest and the moment breaks, until Derek steps back and tilts his head to his apartment. “Want to help me feed him?”

 

Stiles’ grin is going to split his face in half, seriously. “Absolutely,” he says and walks through the doorway. This feels like the beginning of something great.


End file.
